Expand your Pallet

Recently I had a chat with some of the guys in MediaBeast and the topic of motion controllers, and I realized something about gamers.

We are picky people….It’s sometimes worse than my aunt trying to feed my 2 year old cousin.

I look at gaming like food. Some food you might have to get an acquired taste to enjoy it. Or sometimes if you eat one type of food, like organic food, it may be hard to turn back to junk food, because you feel that it is the right food to eat.

On the other hand you have people who only eat “healthy” food and when someone with junk food comes along then that person just won’t eat it, hell they might look down on people who don’t eat the food that they eat. I feel that sometimes you might want to eat that bag of potato chips every so often.

Treat your self to something different. You shouldn’t eat only one food group, that’s why we have a food pyramid.

Oh wait they changed it…..now its a plate…..WTF FDA?

Now replace everything I just said about food with games and now step into my world.

I find it interesting that gamers can acquire these same tastes in what they decide whats good or not. I remember a time where playing games as a child meant that you just had fun, you never had to worry about a website dictating whether you’ll enjoy the game because of how they rate it. Yes, its cool that we can use a review to tell us whether or not a game is worth picking up, but you also have to remember that something that might be fun for me might be terrible for you.

When I work I get to see customers that are only exposed certain games like Call of Duty and Madden.

I once had a customer come into the store telling me that there is nothing else out there to play. Thinking that I can help them with his dilemma, I then introduce him to games like Bioshock, Batman:AA, Gears of war, Uncharted and Vanquish to name a few.

It's like an action movie in my video game….

Having played these games I felt confident that they would enjoy these games and hopefully get them to try other games so I got him to buy some of them. So now lets fast forward a couple of days later and the same customer walks back into the store.

“Hey insert customer’s name, how did you like the games I suggested earlier?” He then looks at me and says ” yeah those games sucked dude, I don’t see why people play those types of games, I ended just buying Call of Duty again.”

So you're telling me you traded in a game just to buy it back a week later?

Sometimes I’ll get a customer who will only play shooters, I understand that some people only stick to one genre. But don’t rob yourself of at least trying out a game just because it’s a change from what you’re used to. If you play Call of Duty and your friend plays Final Fantasy, don’t haze him just because you think that your franchise is better. Remember that is your opinion. But if you forgot what that means then I have a friend that can remind you. <— Click here if you need a refresher course.

I have another customer who used to restrict himself like that but then he took an arrow to the knee….. Sorry I had to go there.

In the course of a couple of months I’ve introduced him to assassinating the Templar order, stopping a madman from taking over a prison and a city, save the galaxy from the reapers, and escape a lab controlled by a computer obsessed with science. He also shared these adventures with his wife, so now she comes in and asks me what games she should play.

Who would have known that this same customer considered gaming to be a waste of time, but due to gaming it actually gave him and his wife a new way to interact with each other. I’m pretty sure before she didn’t like getting nuked in a game or out scored by 50 points in a game.

So consider this, next time you’re searching for a new game to play, try to shoot for something that’s out of your comfort zone. You’ll never know if that game that you have overlooked the past couple of months might just be you next favorite franchise. Try to expand you Gamer Pallet.